I focused on him intently.

He recrossed his legs. Now it was him, not looking at me.

"Dwight?"

He said, "I thought I was in love with her."

Careful, I thought. Take care. The moment is fragile and his trust is tenuous. "It must have been a tough time. Karen was diagnosed with MS right about then, wasn't she?"

He set the glass down again and his gaze met mine. "You have a good memory." I kept silent.

He finally took up the narrative thread. "She was actually in the process of being evaluated, but I think we knew. It's staggering how something like that affects you. She was bitter at first. Withdrawn. In the end, she was better about it than I was. God, I couldn't believe it was happening, and then I turned around and Jean was there. Young, lusty, outrageous."

He was quiet for a moment. I said nothing, letting him tell it his way. He didn't need any prompting from me. This was a story he knew by heart.

"I didn't think Karen would survive anyway because the first round was acute. She seemed to go downhill overnight. Hell, I didn't think she'd live till spring. In a situation like that, your mind leaps ahead. You get into survival mode. I remember thinking, 'Hey, I can make it. The marriage isn't that great, anyway.' I was only what, thirty-nine? Forty? I had a lot of years ahead of me. I figured I'd marry again. Why not? We weren't perfect, the two of us. I'm not sure we were even very well suited to each other. The MS changed all that. When she died, I was more in love with her than I'd ever been."

"And Jean?"

"Ah, but Jean. Early on" – he paused to shake his head –"I was crazy. I must have been. If that relationship had ever become public knowledge... well, it would have ruined my life. Karens, too... what was left of it."

"Was the baby yours?"

"I don't know. Probably. I wish I could say no, but what could I do? I only found out about it after Jean died. I can't imagine what the consequences would have been... you know... if the pregnancy had come to light."

"Yeah, unlawful sexual intercourse being what it is."

"Oh God, don't say that. Even now the phrase is enough to make me sick."

"You kill her?"

"No. I swear. I was capable of a lot of craziness back then, but not that."

I watched him, sensing that he was telling the truth. This wasn't a killer I was listening to. He might have been desperate or despairing. He might have realized after the fact how perilous his situation was, but I didn't hear the kind of rationalization killers get into. "Who else knew about the pregnancy?"

"I don't know. What difference would it make?"

"I'm not sure. You can't really be certain the baby was yours. Maybe there was somebody else."